103rd is troublesome. You could take one of two ways—the No. 2 or 3 trains, which I don’t have to tell you only stop at 96th before veering out into the park and up to the stops you don’t get off at unless you live in the projects. You could walk the eight blocks from 96th, but it’s not recommended. Oh, I’ve done it. Everybody’s done it. You count down each block, lugging your backpack and getting a better grip on your groceries at every light. But the thing to do, if you’re really timing this perfectly—if you’re like him—is to take the 2/3 to 96th and then wait for the No. 1 train to take you that one last stop.

He had it down to a science, where we’d roll into 103rd and be right next to those two full-height turnstyles, dashing to be one of the first ones out of the station. He was always stalking the 1 or stalking the 2/3, getting out every few stops to peer down the opposite track for an approaching express or local.

If you were leaving his house, you had no choice but to take the 1. I liked that better, but he didn’t. On the few times we both went downtown, he would go in his bag, pull out The Atlantic, and stiffly wait. Usually alone, I’d sit down with the New York Review of Books, or if the seats were occupied, lean against the honeycomb of black iron girders, flipping through the large pages of the magazine. It was always quiet, save for the far-off rumbling of some train that you hoped was yours.

103rd was a clean station—a regal one even. Instead of the printed lettering of most stops (or even the ornate tile work of some of the downtown stops), 103rd had a series of heraldic crests with eagles brandishing a ceramic banner that read “103.” I would look up from my magazine and peer down the tunnel for an approaching train as a rat scurried along the tracks. Sometimes I’d watch the two CCTV monitors installed across from the seating area as they recorded nothing. “1 Downtown — All times” reflected in the camera lens.

Jon wasn’t concerned with such things—always reading Harper’s or New York magazine. I wasn’t sure if it was endearing or insulting that we both read when we took the train. I would nervously flip around in my New Yorker as he occasionally commented about some disturbing but marginal development in society.

“Did you read that column about that unsettling murder trial in Forest Hills? There was just something uncanny, something very other about it.”

The last time 103rd was the same, we came up from Canal, full of libations and reading two identical copies of the week’s New Yorker.

The ceramic eagles in the station, obediently holding their scrolls, stared down at us as we exited through the turnstile. We climbed the stairs into the cool, windless night, and walked a block over to his building. Through his lobby, up in the small, faux wood panel elevator, and down his darkened hallway to his room, the silence was slipping by.

He flipped on the small lamp that sat on his homebuilt desk. It was made of the same plywood as the big storage shelf above the doorway and the bookshelves to the right of the door. His roommate, who was very handy, had subdivided a large bedroom in the apartment into two. The room was just big enough for his bed, the desk, and a small space in front of the door. There was nothing on the white walls. I slipped out of my pants and climbed onto the bed as Jon changed, fiddled with his iPod dock, and put on some music to sleep to.

“You know,” he began, beginning to pile his pillows just how he wanted when he slept, “how you asked about the ‘boyfriend’ term last week?” I looked at his too-fair skin impassively, remembering that moment on the train back from Lincoln Center. “We’ll talk about it,” he had said, returning to the crossword puzzle he was doing on his iPod Touch.

“Yeah…”

“Well, you know, I’m just really into being single right now. You know, being single in the city, not limiting myself.” His voice drifted farther away. It was now coming from another creature that had somehow infiltrated his carefully matched American Apparel sleepwear. His lips were moving, but his voice was almost inaudible now, at least in my mind. We had already had the discussion about monogamy—neither of us were fans. I looked beyond his face as he continued speaking, his eyes a pale jade in a sea of translucent marble, to the closed blinds that overlooked Amsterdam Ave. I wondered why he kept emphasizing certain words. He’d done it before, talking about being with his friends. “I just love it—you know, my friends will say, ‘let’s get gay drinks. Doesn’t it sound fun? Gay drinks?” I would stare at him with probably the same expression I wore now, one of disguised contempt. I hate gay bars.

“So that’s all right?” he ventured, subtly moving closer to me.

“Yeah,” I replied insincerely. “Let’s get some sleep,” I suggested, feigning exhaustion and hoping that his sensible nature would prevail. I could see the wheels turning behind his cultivated eyes.

“Sure, I need to be in early tomorrow,” he said after a few moments, leaning over to switch off the light on the desk before he settled down into his pile of pillows. I waited until he was in a deep sleep, looking up at his blank ceiling for a solid half-hour before slipping out of the bed and putting my pants and shirt on. Closing his bedroom door silently behind me, I walked down his hall and let myself out the front door. I took the stairs and left his building, rounding the corner at Amsterdam, passing the place where he had his laundry done, and walked down 104th towards the stairway. I swiped my card and it made the same beep. The place seemed darker than before, the air more stale, like the white-tiled control room of a nuclear power plant.

Sitting down at the bench in the station, I let my face remain impassive. The silence was comforting. He wouldn’t follow. Taking out my New Yorker, I tried to find something with some levity. “Shouts and Murmurs” was my best bet. Something about bees on cocaine. It wasn’t until the first drop fell on the page, soaking into the too-white paper, that I noticed my cheeks were warm and moist. Looking up at the CCTV monitors, they showed that there was no one I needed to hide from.

I began to feel the air moving slowly across my face, tickling the skin on my arms, as the barely audible sound of the train’s roar began. In a few minutes, it burst into the station, all aluminum and rubber, stuttering and screeching to a stop. I rose and took a look back at the eagles holding their banners, the orderly grids of off-white tiles. I took a deep breath and wiped my face with the back of my hand.

“This is a downtown 1 train making all stops; stand clear of the doors.”

Every time I’d go uptown to see him, I’d let the 2/3 pass me by. Despite the thrill of it—the brisk mental calculations of which was the perfect way to go, the spirited chase of the 2/3, I’d stumbled on the truth a long time ago.

You only save a few minutes taking the express.